"he tried to tell the truth, but what came out was only half of the truth. Later, much later, he found that he was unable to relieve himself of two regrets: one, that when she leaned back he saw that the necklace he made had scratched her throat, and two, that in the most important moment of his life he had chosen the wrong sentence."

In December they found a mass on my right kidney. Mass. The perfect word. Heavy and thick and weighty, full of enormously devastating potential. A tiny little word that slowly starts to take on a mass of it's own as it rolls around in your mind.

The first surgeon we talked to refused to do the surgery because of the complications. I saw this as a bad sign. Not only that, but he said he didn't know anyone in David's hospital system capable of doing the surgery without "speed bumps." He used air quotes. I stared at his fingers. There was an entire world of foreboding possibilities hanging between them.

The very next Sunday, our bishop took a few minutes at the end of the meeting to talk about "callings" on the other side of the veil.

My heart dropped.

It felt exactly like the moment David told me about his job opportunity in Peoria. Dread and certainty all at once. It felt like fate, and a warning: "Get ready."

Only I wasn't. Ready, I mean. Not even close. And I didn't know how to get ready. I didn't know if I should clean out all my drawers and closets or put meals in the freezer or spend my hours repenting or teach my children all the things on that endless list of things I still hadn't taught them or help David memorize all the online passwords and teach him when he had to pay the electric bill and the violin teacher or make lists of who had to be picked up when.

There was no way to prepare.

My sister, Emily, who is a teacher, compared it to making a list for the substitute. I was making a sub list for the rest of forever. Impossible. I read once about how Elder Richard G. Scott and his wife had prepared for one of them to be able to live without the other by learning all the jobs the other one did, so they could still manage if one of them passed away. "Why hadn't we done this?" I asked myself a million times in the middle of the night.

But this was only the beginning of the rehearsal of regrets.

Unbelievably, this wasn't the first time they found a mass on my kidney. I had been living on borrowed time for forty years already. And what had I done with it? It was hard to think of a single worthy thing. Let's be honest: My children have pretty much raised themselves, my marriage is the simply the product of all of David's patience and goodness, and the house I have tried to keep actually will not keep and would, in fact, be thick with dust and grime the week after they put me in the ground. I started to feel like maybe God had simply run out the line as long as he could, given me as much time as possible, received nothing for his trouble, and was finally reeling me in. Obviously he wasn't going to to catch anything on my line. "Let's call it. Time to reel that one in."

Time passed. We were referred to the best doctors in the valley. They met and discussed my case and we celebrated Christmas. A new year brought a new treatment plan and we waited for insurance approval and muscled our way through Caleb's music school auditions. David continually talked me off the ledge. And we prayed. Oh, how we prayed. Every breath felt like prayer. We asked other, far more worthy, people to pray as well.

And I promised myself that if I was granted another reprieve, I would make the most of it. I would stop asking "What do I have to do?" and instead ask "Who do I need to connect with?" I would stop gritting and enduring and start appreciating and enjoying. I would stop telling heaven what I was going to do each day and then whining for help and instead I would just finally shut up and listen.

I've spent enough time in my life as Jonah, dictating my will to heaven. And recently, I've spent some quality time in the belly of the whale.

Apparently, while the rest of my body was doing the sensible thing and becoming more and more relaxed every day of Christmas break, my hamstrings were doing the opposite, experimenting with just how tight they could possibly get when left on their own. Downward cripple dog.

I really hate beginnings. Too much pressure. I even hate the beginning of the conversation. Excruciating. It takes David a good twenty minutes to get me to warm up to him at the end of the day. How are you? How was your day? Who can assess and sort and evaluate an entire day and then come up with a quick, adequate, accurate answer to these questions? They are landmines, full of innuendo and accusation, and I get tripped up every time. Once we get through the first painful sentences, it's so much easier. Downward emotionally-cripple human.

And yet, here we are in a brand new year and I find that I just can't help myself. As usual, the first and foremost, the constant and eternal, the old and tired, the relentless and unquenchable desire that always surfaces is the word. To write.

Yes, to write. To record. To create. To be heard. To make sense of. To be understood. To make art. To tell the truth. To find the truth. To remember. To love better. And say it more. To write.

Last night as we turned out the lights and spoke the last lines of the day that were all about what I didn't get done and how the year might have changed but I hadn't, I remembered the snow that started Christmas Eve and didn't stop for two days. The flakes were tiny. Dry, meager, Utah flakes. Small and harmless and insignificant. So small, they almost looked like dust. But all told, there were thirty-four inches covering the aspens and the pines and our cozy cabin by the time the storm wore itself out. Tiny flake by tiny flake. Impossible. And yet, true.

That is what I hope for. One sentence, one tiny word at a time, letter by letter, until I have to shovel my way out.

I just used a swear word on Instagram, so there you go. Now I'll probably be banned from Instagram. Reported as inappropriate. Don't worry. It was completely appropriate.

Did you hear? It's Friday.

Just when you thought you couldn't take it any more. Relief and reprieve. And not a minute too soon.

Last night, after a long day of mothering and maiding and parent teacher conferencing and cello lessons and homework and burning up a quarter tank of gas and giving a fireside and not eating dinner til ten o'clock, I was moaning in bed.

And not the good kind.

Sometimes I get so tired and frustrated that I can no longer form words. Swear words or otherwise. And so I just groan and squall and make primal animal noises.

It helps.

My mom used to tell me that it wouldn't help. That I should just say "hippopotamus" over and over and it would make the pain go away. But I prefer caterwauling.

After a few minutes of this, I managed a few words. "I need some positive feedback," I said.

"You're doing good," David said with no enthusiasm or conviction. Like the way he says "We need milk" or "I'm going to mow the lawn."

Pathetic.

I protested. "You didn't even try." Pause. "Come on, I need Boss's Day. I'm the boss of everything and I need a day."

David caught the thread then. "Ya, isn't that dumb?" he asked, and went on a long discussion about how ridiculous Boss's Day is, my problems forgotten and left on the side of the conversation.

Ethan has been limping around the last few days. He scraped his knee at a volleyball game in P.E. and has been using my grandmother's cane around the house. Yesterday he and Olivia played wall ball on the garage door and he used the cane the entire game. Not to mention the quart of Neosporin that has been slathered on the wound. You can't be too careful.

The other kids just roll their eyes. Ethan's low pain tolerance is legendary. You should hear him when he has a canker. On more than one occasion I have considered taking him to the emergency room. For a canker. I tell David, "Maybe something's really wrong." Abscess? TMJ? Throat cancer? David just shakes his head. But I can only remember the time that Savannah cried for four days after she fell down hard on the sidewalk and I kept telling her to "be happy and put a smile on." Turns out her arm was broken.

It's possible that Ethan has shattered his knee cap and I keep making him soldier on--go to school, walk home from the bus stop, play wall ball, take a shower--all with a scraped knee. Oh, the wails that ensue during the shower scene. You'd think he was being murdered.

Every night we listen to his homicide through the walls. "Maybe something's really wrong," I say. We're probably going to have to amputate. David just shakes his head. He's had lots of experience. He's married to me after all. After years of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, he knows when something's really wrong. And it rarely is.

By the time the heat has gone, and the pumpkins have been carved, and the days have shortened enough to have candles at dinner, things will bet settled. I will have reached an even keel, a rhythm to this hurry-up, task-filled life. And I will be okay.

But between now and then, it is the season of self-doubt. Where every decision I make, and every decision I have ever made, must be hashed, and rehashed, questioned, and requestioned, cried about, and yes, recried about. I worry that I'm not doing enough and, simultaneously, that I'm doing too much. I wonder if my kids are in the right place, if I'm in the right place, if there is a right place. I fret over our time--the time apart, the limited time together, the time I can't get back. And on and on. It's a whole thing.

Last week, after a particularly hard day, Ethan started sobbing halfway through his piano lesson. His teacher looked over at me, alarmed, looking for reassurance or answers, only to find that I was crying too.

Things are truly desperate.

Last night I came home from a Relief Society meeting to find David just starting on the dishes. I said, "How did things go?"

"Fine," he said, completely unconvincingly.

"What do you mean?"

And then he told me. There were kids to pick up. There was dinner to put on. There were three people who needed help with their math. And in the middle of it, four calls from the hospital. "It was crazy," he concluded.

I smiled. "Welcome to my world," I didn't say.

But later, in bed, he told me how Caleb had asked a girl on a date. For the first time. And how he had overheard the whole thing. I asked for every detail, the play-by-play, which David is so good at. (I would have married him just for his conversation play-by-plays. They are that good.) I laughed and curled my toes and sighed in all the right parts. And then we sat there marveling about how our boy had grown up and was now living his own life. Just like that.

And that is the thing about the season of self-doubt. You feel a little like Charles Dickens is writing your life story. It is the best of times and the worst of times, all at once. Right in the middle of all the hustling horror, there are these glimmers of glory that remind you that this is the way it has to be in order for your kids to grow up and grow out and live their own lives. And that, really, there is no other way.

Because last week amid the hustle and the tears, there was also a birthday party for Savannah. Somehow she turned thirteen. All by herself. And we sang and I even figured out how to bake a cake and she made a wish and blew out all the candles. And as much as a part of me sat there wishing she was still a chubby little four-year-old standing in front of me as I curl her bob and tie her pigtails, I wouldn't have taken a single candle off that cake. She is beautiful and strong and smart and good. She gave the lesson in her young women's class on Sunday and absolutely refused our help. I asked for the highlights afterwards and was nothing but amazed at her testimony and her ability to create connections between the principles she taught and the experiences of her own life. I just sat there at the dinner table stunned and a little awed.

Also last week, I took Caleb to the DMV and after about four hours and four thousand fervent prayers (on my part), he emerged with his license and a new sense of independence. On Friday, when I was throwing a part for Savannah, he picked up his friend and drove to another friend's house and didn't even say goodbye. I was, again, a little stunned.

It is a strange place here in the season of self-doubt. Horrible. Painful. Exhausting. And yet. Sweet in ways I cannot say. Thrilling. Stunning. And a little awe inspiring. And I am getting through one day at a time.

And now, for the black eye. Last week, amid everything else, we also participated in our ward's variety show. It's not a great recording, heavy on the piano, but proof anyway, that we know how to have a good time even in the worst of times. Here is Black-Eyed Beethoven:

[In full disclosure, this post was written over a couple of days, with intermittent and international wi-fi coverage...and by now it barely makes sense to publish it at all. And yet, here I am doing it anyway.]

Thursday morning

I was going to share a photo on Instagram this morning, but found I had more to say than the little caption box is designed to hold. Instagram is not really my preferred format anyway, as evidenced by my pitiful collection of photos. Given the choice, I will choose the 1000 words over the substitute. Every time.

We just passed the 45th parallel, exactly halfway between the equator and the North Pole, and I am carsick. Out of practice, I suppose.

The green hills and bouncy clouds of Oregon look exactly as we left them nearly four years ago. Keeping vigil until our return. The grasses are slowly turning into pines the closer we get to the Pacific. No wonder Lewis and Clark kept going. Every mile is more beautiful than the last. Of course these hills will be shaved bare again before we see the tides. I love the dressing and undressing of rolling hills. These road trip stripteases never get old.

Friday

Early last evening we made it to the northern end of Washington, Oregon's dark, foreboding cousin. The greens are deeper, more menacing, and capable of swallowing you whole if you step too far off the road. It was a shock to step out of the car into the damp and the chill and David and I were forced to climb up and untie the car-top carrier to find jeans and socks and close-toed shoes. (Though on the morning news they were talking about the heat wave and I couldn't stop laughing.)

We woke this morning to somebody blowing the fog horn over and over, long and low, and the gulls calling. It already feels like we're in a foreign country even though we haven't yet crossed the watery border a mile or so into the Pacific. We are headed north. As far north as we can get. When your backyard is as hot as the surface of the sun, the only thing to do is head north. And as Caleb reminded me in southern Idaho, the earth turns slower the closer we get to the pole. Just what I had in mind. More time together, more savoring, elongate each gorgeous, precious moment, roll around in it. I am determined to make the sun stand still.

I feel like I ought to say something about my long absence from blogging, rather than dumping you directly into our vacation. My life seems pretty magical when the posts go from holiday to holiday, eh? (Look, I'm already speaking Canadian!) But now there is too much--too much to say, too much to remember--and the last few months have been like a wildfire, burning out large swaths of my memory and leaving only a few stubby highlights among the smoldering, smoking ruins.

There was school and work and church and lessons and school musicals and finals and an endless lineup of orchestra concerts. Though to say it in one sentence like that does nothing to convey the heat and terror of the firefight. I also happened to throw an Indian-themed wedding for my youngest sister. I didn't sleep during the entire month of May. Mostly from searing and unrelenting fear. My own mind can be a fearsome thing at three in the morning. You will be surprised to learn that this made me mildly difficult to live with. Despite my worries (and David's collateral suffering) it turned out lovely. People who happened by slowed down and got out of their cars to crane their necks at all that love and beauty.

And then finally, blessedly, the fire was out. Summer was here and puzzles and games and movie marathons became the most pressing issues of every day. And slowly, I have learned to sleep again. Ten minutes more every day. Soon I will be downright slothful.

Best of all, here we are in line to board the ferry to British Columbia. We are headed out to sea, straight into the fog. North, like I said. Inside my head they are playing a rousing rendition of "O, Canada" and outside my head the earth is slowing down as it arcs along its orbit through space.

I've figured out that Monday night is the perfect time to write, while I wait for my kids to finish practicing Mozart's 40th Symphony with their orchestra. I have a couple of hours to kill, with no one to interrupt or nagging laundry to protest.

Perfect.

Trouble is, my inspiration has not coincided with my calendar.

Pity, that.

What's left is a recitation of our strange-but-true weekend. (Sure to be less than brilliant. If you give up here, I'm not going to say you made the wrong decision.)

I had a mild-to-moderate breakdown on Thursday night. (David would definitely characterize it as more moderate, bordering on complete lunacy, but he's not telling this story.) Anyway, by the time Friday morning was upon us, I think he had given up all hope of a decent weekend.

(This is not the strange part.)

After I dropped the kids off to make their way through the final day of the quarter, I went to the gym. (Again, contrary to popular opinion, this is also not the strange part.) But instead of the treadmill or the Zumba class, I went to yoga, to try and get my brain or my hormones or my chakras in line. While I was in downward dog, I realized I needed my toes painted. (Look how focused I am in yoga! I am so good at so many things!) So, uncharacteristically, I went to get a pedicure. The girl at the salon said "Do you want a manicure too?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Okay."

And while she was doing my manicure and we were sitting face-to-face, she said, "Do you want your eyebrows waxed?" I think if anyone asks you that question, it's just like if someone asks you if you want a mint. They're trying to tell you something. And yes, you want one.

So what else could I say? "Yes."

And while she was waxing my eyebrows, she said, "Do you want me to do your lip too."

You got it.

It was a strange morning.

But I did feel better.

Strangely so. Even David noticed the change and found something a little odd when he kissed me at the end of the day. "What happened?" he asked.

On Saturday between sessions of General Conference we ran to Old Navy to get fleece coats for our weekend in Utah. While we were there I tried on (gasp!) and bought (shock and awe!) a pair of skinny jeans. I know, downright eerie. Who knows what possessed me, as normally I don't like my clothes to actually touch me. But there you go. It's fair to say that by the end of the weekend, I was practically unrecognizable.

And then, perhaps strangest of all, on Saturday night, after priesthood session, all the other kids were at friends' houses, so Caleb and David and I went for sushi. And over chef special rolls and wonton soup we talked about the new missionary age announced that morning. And what it would mean to us.

My sister Rachel had texted me that morning: How does it feel to have just lost a year?

Strange, indeed.

(And yes, to answer your question, that is an enormous amount of sushi for three people. We strangely, notoriously, invariably overorder. Saturday night was no exception.)

Last night I didn't want to go to bed. It was the last day of summer and I hated to see it go.

So I had a fight with David. To stall, see?

I was actually mad at the universe, but David was closer, so I worked out a way to blame it all on him. Which sounds hard, but I made it look easy.

I set the alarm before bed, but I didn't need it. I woke early and lay there listening to my quiet house, reveling in the thought of my children softly snoring and breathing in the last deep breaths of summer air. I lay there keeping watch as the last precious grains of sand in our summer hourglass ran out.

All night long, my heart and mind knew morning was coming, ticking off the hours one heartbeat at a time, as the inexorable rotation of the earth brought me around to face the sun and the calendar again. I feel like my very life is as round as that orbit. Circling around and around, from school to summer and back again.

And here I am again.

My brother asked me this morning if I cried.

No, I did not. Because this morning as I said my prayers, the word "inexorable" came to mind. Vocabulary as revelation...what could be better? No amount of crying or pleading can change my fate. Put a smile on. And so I prayed for strength instead, and then went to make blueberry pancakes.

And then this.

When I dropped the kids off at school, at the beginning of already another school year, all the teachers were standing outside wearing shirts that said:

Let's eat, Grandma!Let's eat Grandma!

And when they turned around, the back of their shirts said:

Punctuation saves lives.

Hilarious. I laughed out loud and then grinned all the way home. Which assuaged my loss some and made me remember how much I loved going to school myself. Which in turn reminded me to be happy. For them. For the stories they will bring home to my dinner table. For all that they are learning and storing away in their brilliant little minds. Put a smile on. And it is not to much to say that it felt like heaven had arranged the whole thing just for me. Vocabulary and punctuation as answer to prayer. Perfect.

And now I feel so good there is even a chance that David may get a kiss and a hug after work rather than the dirty look I had saved up for him.

This morning I was encouraging the girls to move faster ("It's 7:27 and I still haven't heard any practicing," "Olivia, if I see you in just your bra one more time..." "Girls, do you know what time it is?"), when I noticed Savannah's to-do list, hanging on her bulletin board.

It read:

spelling test

P.E. (tena shoes)

water bottel

[an aside: it's clear that those last two things do not bode well for the first thing]

perseverance

[another aside: is it weird that she can spell "perseverance" but not "bottle"?]

Sigh.

Last night as I was pulling the Wimmer Truc out from under my broiler and slicing it into sandwiches for dinner, I suddenly started crying. I was suddenly so tired I couldn't do anything else but cry. In the minute between the broiler and the table, I hit the wall.

This is officially our thirteenth day back at school. Not that I'm counting. And while I am trying my very best (our family theme this year: Be Your Best) to be happy and "enjoy the journey" and all that, I have to admit that I'm already wiped out. I told David, who looked around the room utterly baffled (his mind whirring to figure out what tragedy happened between the oven and the table), "I've gone as far as I can go."

The trouble is, thirteen days is not very far.

Especially in comparison to the hundred and sixty-seven or so days still to go.

It's not just me either. Savannah herself has cried her way out the door the last two mornings. Which is, I imagine, why "perseverance" made it onto her list.

Which almost makes me feel more sorry for her than I am for myself. Almost.

[a final aside: is this the BEST whining you've ever heard? I thought so. Be your best...at everything.]

Last night in bed, I asked David, "Do you think I'm going to make it?"

"Sure." A smile.

"Are you aware of everything I'm up against?"

Another smile. He assured me that I have made him fully aware.

"Okay," I sighed, and he gave me a hug.

Perhaps that might have been a better tactic than the "change-your-attitude" speech I gave Savannah this morning.

Rats.

Oh, summer, how I miss you. It was so much easier to be my best at the beach.

It has been five days since the Garden of Hope Spring Tea (my big fundraising event of the year) and I am out of excuses. It is time to post.

I cleaned my house. Long neglected.

I paid the bills. Long overdue.

I went to the store and the library. Long out of anything to eat or read. (There is a running debate around here about which is worse.)

Today I intend to go to my final class and iron David's shirts. The man has been ironing his own since February. And after that I have a list of things I've been meaning to get to: wash the girls' bedding, organize the swim cupboard, prepare the file boxes for the end-of-the-year school treasures, breathe, sleep, nap, smile. All good things and all about time.

Last night I had a dream that David no longer loved me. Too hard to live with, plus the house was a mess, he said. I woke up and had to be reassured several times before he left for work this morning.

When I think back over the last three months, I want to dance (it's over!) and cry (it was hard!). David has been calmly coaxing me through the ensuing maelstrom of ups and downs. You can imagine.

Anyway, did you know I was a philanthropist? (Honestly, there is almost no end to my amazingness.)

Well, I am.

I made this quilt and raised a whole lot of money for the cancer program at David's hospital. (He should be so lucky, I tell my horrid dream.)

And even better, I looked gorgeous doing it. (Hello.)

David and I have a standing joke that since he didn't marry me for my money he must have married me for my looks. This post is evidence that it seems I'm good for both.

Tomorrow, a real post.

P.S. A generous and heartfelt thank you to all of you who sent cards and help and good wishes my way during the madness. They meant more than I can say.

But it is not too much to say that I have been drowning. To busy trying to stay afloat to even write a distressed SOS. The waters are just now finally starting to recede, leaving me exhausted and mildewed.

It all started when I thought it was a good idea to take a class on writing and force a few deadlines on myself.

Which would have been fine, if it weren't that I forgot that the last time I took a class I did not have four children and two church callings and one large, full-time job feeding, clothing, and cleaning a family.

Which still might have been fine, if I hadn't forgotten that I also do volunteer work on a committee to raise funds for cancer services and our big event is just a couple of months away, and my sister and I also spend much of our free time travelling and teaching a class on body image.

Which still had a microscopic chance of being fine, it I hadn't also said "yes" to various other people and commitments, which didn't seem hard at the time they asked, but impossible by the time it was time to deliver.

And so it has not been so fine.

(At one point amid the hosting of a dinner/dance for a hundred people to celebrate the latest minor-holiday and helping Caleb sift through 80 pictures of growing petri dishes for his science project and trying to finish my round robin late again, I told David that I was having fantasies about getting cancer so that the only thing on my to-do list was "go to chemo." He made me take that back.)

Yesterday my family ate cereal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and I took a two-hour nap in the afternoon.

I had gone as far as I could go.

This morning Caleb asked in a hopeless voice if we were having cereal again for breakfast.

I said yes.

And then I turned to David and whispered that I am failing. He just smiled at me and nodded. He loves me anyway, I suppose.

Now for a story. About the best part of the last two weeks.

A couple of weeks ago I had to turn in a manuscript, either a short story or a chapter, for my writing class to review. We workshop the piece, which means you make a copy for everyone in the class and they go home and read it over the weekend and make all kinds of marks and suggestions and comments on it and then on the following Tuesday we talk about the piece.

After I turned it in, David said that if I could let eighteen strangers read it, I could surely let him.

So I did.

When he got done with it he only made one comment. And it was, apparently, not the right one.

David took me to In and Out where I cried into my milkshake and asked him hundred times what I was thinking and what I was doing with my life and what was I going to do now and what was the worst part, the writing or the story or both.

Because, let's be honest, if there's one thing I really excel at, it is self-doubt.

(I keep telling David that it adds to my charm.)

When my blood sugar and my emotions were more stable he drove me home.

By Tuesday morning I had given up the dream. Determined to be content reading and enjoying the writing of other people, to drop the class and get back to my laundry. I decided to let it die or kill it off myself, and then I considered the funeral arrangements. (Adele would sing, I would say a few words, the kids could do a reading of Steinbeck or Tolstoy to put everything in perspective and remind us that we weren't losing much, bagpipes at the end, etc.)

But my professor resurrected it with three little words and one punctuation choice written at the bottom of my manuscript: "April, absolutely brilliant!"

Note the exclamation point. You can bet I did.

I could not be unhappy the entire day.

When David got home from work I still had the smile on my face. We did a little celebratory dance in the kitchen. And David told me how frustrating it is to be my husband but smiled at me the whole time he was saying it and I did nothing but grin back at him.